CHAPTER FIVE

Jamal’s POV

The summons had been a cold, handwritten note left on the windshield of my car. My study. 8:00 PM. Alone.

I told Kassy I was going over to her parents' house to "smooth things over" with her father. She had kissed me, her eyes full of a tragic kind of hope, and told me I was the bravest man she knew. I felt like a fraud. I wasn't brave; I was just a man trying to outrun a landslide.

Walking into Greg’s house felt like walking into a trap. I found him in his study. The room was dark, lit only by a single lamp on the desk and the dying embers in the fireplace. He was standing by the window, his back to me, holding a glass of scotch.

I sat. My knees felt like they were made of water. "Sir, I know we started on the wrong foot. I love Kassy. I want to make this right."

"Do you?" Greg finally turned. He didn't look angry. He looked... disgusted. "You want to talk about 'right'? You want to talk about the 'truth'?"

"Yes," I said, trying to steady my breath. "I have nothing to hide from her."

Greg let out a short, dry laugh. He walked slowly toward a small safe built into the mahogany bookshelves. Click. Click. Click. "Kassy thinks you're a saint," Greg said. "She thinks you’re the man who saved her.

"You know, Jamal, I’ve always prided myself on being a good judge of character. When Kassy brought you home and told me you were the one, I wanted to believe her. I wanted to see the man she saw."

He reached into the box.

"But the human mind is a funny thing," Greg continued. "It records details we don't even know we're saving. A voice. A scent. The way a man carries his shoulders when he thinks no one is watching."

He pulled something out of the box. It was a heavy, silver-and-black masquerade mask, ornate and cold.

My breath hitched. I knew that mask. I had seen it in the flickering neon lights of The Velvet Curtain two years ago. It was the mask worn by 'Client 402'—the man who had paid for a triple-session in the private suite.

"Two years ago," Greg whispered, "I was in a very dark place. My marriage was a shell. My business was failing. I went somewhere I shouldn't have gone. A place where men go to shed their identities. A place with private rooms. Masked encounters."

My heart stopped. The blood in my veins turned to ice. My mind raced back two years—to the club, to the "discreet" sessions I took when I was desperate for money to pay off my mother’s medical bills. It was a blur of faces I never saw and voices I tried to forget.

"I remember the man I met that night," Greg continued, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly intimate crawl. "He was professional. But he had a voice... a very distinctive, melodic voice. And he had a way of moving. A certain way of tilting his head when he spoke."

"But the human mind is a funny thing," Greg continued. "It records details we don't even know we're saving. A voice. A scent. The way a man carries his shoulders when he thinks no one is watching."

He pulled something out of the box. It was a heavy, silver-and-black masquerade mask, ornate and cold.

My breath hitched. I knew that mask. I had seen it in the flickering neon lights of The Velvet Curtain two years ago. It was the mask worn by 'Client 402'—the man who had paid for a triple-session in the private suite.

"The light was dim that night," Greg whispered. "And I made sure to stay silent. I didn't want you to know who I was. I just wanted to disappear into the shame of it."

Before I could speak, Greg lifted the mask. He pressed it to his face, the silver edges catching the lamplight.

The transformation was instantaneous.

Suddenly, I wasn't standing in a mahogany study with my future father-in-law. I was back in that windowless room, the smell of expensive cologne and sweat filling my nose. I saw those eyes—those same hard, judging eyes—looking at me through the silver slits.

My knees hit the floor before I even realized they were buckling.

"Oh God," I choked out, the room spinning. "No. No, no, no..."

"You recognize it now, don't you?" Greg’s voice came from behind the mask, muffled and haunting. "The 'Gold Room.' Two years ago. I sat in that chair, and you... you did exactly what I paid you to do."

He pulled the mask away, his face flushed with a mixture of agony and pure loathing.

"Kassy told me you’ve been together for four years," Greg hissed, leaning over me. "Which means that while you were in that room with me—while you were taking my money to perform—you were already her 'everything.' You were already the man she was dreaming of marrying."

The math was a physical weight, crushing the air out of my lungs. Two years ago. I had been desperate for money to keep my head above water, and I’d told myself the club was just a job. It wasn't cheating because there was no "emotion" involved. It was just a transaction.

But I had transacted with her father. I had betrayed Kassy with the man who gave her life.

"I didn't know it was you," I sobbed, burying my face in my hands. "I swear, I didn't know. The mask... the rules... I never saw your face."

"And I never thought I’d see yours again!" Greg roared, slamming his glass onto the desk. It shattered, amber liquid spraying across the leather. "But then my daughter brings a man home. She tells me he’s a 'saint.' She tells me they’ve been together for four years. And I look at him, and I hear that voice... and I realize I’ve already bought and sold the man who wants to carry my grandchildren."

He grabbed me by the front of my shirt, dragging me up until we were eye-to-eye.

"You cheated on my daughter with her own father," he whispered, his breath smelling of scotch and ruin. "You are a sickness, Jamal. You are a rot in this family."

"I love her," I gasped.

"You don't know what love is!" Greg shoved me back. "You’re going to leave. You’re going to tell her you found someone else, or you’re going to just vanish. I don't care how you do it, but you will not marry her."

"If I leave, she'll ask why," I said, my voice shaking. "She'll come looking for answers."

I looked at him, and for a second, I almost told him. I almost told him that it was too late. That Lily was already pregnant with my child. That the "sin" had already multiplied.

But I saw the desperation in his eyes.

"I can't leave her," I whispered. "She just lost the baby. If I leave now, she'll break."

Get out. Get out before I lose my mind."

I turned and bolted for the door. I ran through the hallway, past the family photos, gasping for breath.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was a text from Lily.

Lily: Ethan just proposed. I said yes. We're coming over to the house now to tell everyone. See you in ten minutes.

I looked back at the study door. Greg was still in there, thinking he had just won. He thought the "masked stranger" was the worst thing in his house.

He had no idea that in ten minutes, his other daughter was going to walk through the door with a "godly" husband-to-be and a belly full of the "stranger’s" child.

The past wasn't just speaking. It was screaming.